


Foregone Conclusion

by RhetoricFemme



Series: Scenic World AU [11]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Break-up sex, First Relationships, Introspection, M/M, about 1.5-2 years before Scenic World begins, and this poor boy's trying to pretend he's not in love with somebody else, good intentions don't defend our actions Jean, oh but he tried, scenic world, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 05:00:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16804117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhetoricFemme/pseuds/RhetoricFemme
Summary: It hasn’t escaped Jean’s notice, but more appropriately it’s hounded his mind that so much of his spare mental energy is guided toward a small number of people, none of whom are a convenient distance away.It’ll only occur as an afterthought the following morning, when Jean is more than halfway there, that he’s no sense of longing for the arms that for the past several months have delighted in keeping him warm at night.





	Foregone Conclusion

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So, there's now a Jean/Willy tag on AO3. 
> 
> I actually really enjoyed writing this piece, and I would love to visit this piece of Jean's life later on, when I have more time. I hope you like it, and thank you for reading!

Everyone deserves at least one charmed beginning. Unassuming meet-cutes and intentions to traipse into the future holding hands, potential disturbances far from mind and entirely unseen.

For Jean Kirschstein, Liam Tybur was just that.

Honey blond clasped at the nape of his tanned neck, slightly crooked teeth inside of a billion-dollar smile.

Class was being held outside that morning, as their instructor had deemed walls inferior to the sun-warmed seats of the university amphitheater.

Jean had shown up early, slinging his backpack onto an empty seat and cracking open a book to bide his time. Try as he might, however, his focus continued to fall victim to a small cacophony several rows over.

Right. Of course, it had to be him.

Liam spoke with his hands while regaling classmates. Elaborate and important talk of how he’d spent his summer trailing precariously elevated cliffsides and narrow mountain roads, though something about his tone somehow remained humble.

Be it the decibel of his voice, the story itself, or the way his eyes scanned the class while speaking, Jean found Liam Tybur an altogether strange creature, and impossible to ignore.

Judging by a series of blink-and-miss glances, Liam didn’t want him to.

He’d shown boyish curiosity when he finally approached Jean, all at once bold and demure. Sweet and confident.

Expectant.

Directing his eye back into his book, Jean doesn’t look up again until he sees a pair of sneakers in his peripheral vision. The white rubber soles of said shoes are almost entirely covered in Sharpie-laden sentences. Of course they are.

“What’cha reading?”

“Ah,” It had been the perfect foil to Liam’s poise when Jean had opened his mouth to nervous laughter. “ _Death's Acre?_ It’s about forensics and cadavers.”

A nod of his golden head, a pursed lip smile. “Well that’s something, isn’t it?”

“Everything is something.”

“Morbid.” Jean assumes this was meant to be flirtatious, when interestingly Liam is beginning to sound critical. Maybe a little apprehensive. Regardless, he summons the gall to point toward Jean’s bag. “So are you saving this seat for someone?”

Jean takes his time. Gives himself as many long-passing seconds as he needs to assess the person in front of him. Three weeks into class, and they’ve exchanged more words in this amphitheater than their collective time inside the classroom.

“Not really.” A lopsided grin and sweet hazel sparks, and the backpack finds itself moved to the ground. “Go ahead and sit.”

* * *

At the end of the day, Liam would be alright.

Jean had been watching the way he lived out one thought to the next; the way people were drawn to Liam, and he drawn right back to them. The way he found existential beauty and crisis in the smallest of things. Liam was gifted with the disposition to find catharsis in the mere act of breathing, and he’d then go on to tell all the world about it.

For as endearing as Liam could be, Jean was not proud to admit that he had long since considered him a touch obnoxious. That he'd grown bored of the occasional guilt Liam would try and rend from Jean for not showing up at every play, or for preferring jam sessions and science labs to after-parties. It was not lost on Jean that for every one of the high-brow quotes or book covers Liam wanted to press onto Jean, that the only attention reciprocated for his own interests came in the form of blatant criticism.

There was guilt pinned to the anti-sentiment. Of course there was, but there was also the guilt born from the fact that when Liam looked at Jean, there was one word left after all the others had gone away.

Loving.

This, and the fact that Jean simply could not force himself to feel the same way.

“Can’t believe you’re going to be gone all of spring break.” Liam rolls onto his side, snakes his arm around Jean’s waist as he lays motionless on his back. “Would’ve been nice to lay around for a few days. Just us. Read some books together, binge watch something. Eren’s going home, right? We could’ve…”

It’s discreet when Jean moves away from the lips grazing across his neck, compensating for the loss by affectionately trailing his fingers through long blond hair.

“You don’t like the books I like.” Jean teases, wanting for absentminded bliss, but instead settling on lazily braiding his lover’s hair.

“No, no I don’t.” Liam’s laughter is good-natured, and Jean imagines it's one of the few things he's going to miss. “It’s fine, though. Nice of you to help your brothers move into their house.”

Truth be told, Jean’s been looking forward to this. The glee in Reiner’s voice when he’d called more than a month ago now, telling Jean they’d done it—they’d actually gotten a fucking house, and the only thing that would make the deal better is if Jean drove up and helped them move in.

While Jean has no regrets about going to school in Ohio, nor does he believe he’s cut out for a lifetime of distance from the people he calls home. He’s come to discern what he believes to be an acceptable arm’s length of separation based on how quickly he can get himself home when wistfulness strikes. Or on those rare occasions that someone he cares about is in a genuine position of need.

It hasn’t escaped Jean’s notice, but more appropriately it’s hounded his mind that so much of his spare mental energy is guided toward a small number of people, none of whom are a convenient distance away.

It’ll only occur as an afterthought the following morning, when Jean is more than halfway there, that he’s no sense of longing for the arms that for the past several months have delighted in keeping him warm at night.

For the moment, Jean is still too preoccupied thinking about all the work he’ll have to keep him busy. How much time he’ll have to engage in conversation that isn’t happening in the form of a text, the long drive ahead…

“…sorry, what?”

“Whenever you get a chance to come home with _me_ , I was saying.” Liam locks eyes with Jean, the question in his gaze contradicting the certainty of his words. “They don’t call me Liam.”

“No? What’d they call you, then?”

“Willy.”

Jean can’t help but smile. It’s the sort of name that incites images of innocence and childlike wonder, and so despite the way Liam cringes at the name, Jean can’t help but find it fitting.

“When you’re at home what do they call you?”

“Just Jean.”

“No nicknames?”

He thinks of the obvious. Of how second-nature it is to hear his parents, Levi or Reiner call him by that annoying, but well-loved nickname. Thinks of how Bertholt reserves it for quieter moments, or how Marco’s brows had raised in sweet amusement the first time he’d heard Reiner call him Jeanbo.

“Just Jean.”

“Mm.” Liam’s arm wraps tighter around his waist. “ _Just Jean_ , it is.”

The movements that once caused Jean to pulse with heat now serve to remind him of how far they’ve dropped off. How far in his own ruminations he’s come. How he’s uncertain whether the man beside him is ignoring the growing chasm Jean has struck in the space between them, or if he truly doesn’t feel it.

Despite all of this, he’s not immune to Liam’s charms. Jean’s body still responds generously to a certain degree of caresses and touch. There’s a high level of adoration worthy of being defended, even if Liam could never bring himself to press in upon request. He could never bring himself to grip or pull hard enough for Jean’s tastes.

The amped up coil in Jean’s gut has long since died. And so he reroutes the desperate, romantic attempts of lips at his neck before the rest of his drive has a chance to go cold.

Liam sighs, full of heat and lacking inhibition when his clothes land in a heap on Jean’s bedroom floor, letting Jean guide his hand between his legs.

“You’re so to-the-point these days.” Sharp commentary amid languid strokes of a tongue. “Where’s the boy who looked at foreplay as if he couldn’t live without it?”

The comment is playful, if not inquisitive, but it leaves Jean with an unavoidable chill growing in his belly.

“M’right here.” He hooks a leg behind the strong, familiar waist, unable to muster anything better, even as a going-away present. “Guess I’ve changed a bit.”

“No.” Liam sighs pleasantly, ignores the way Jean tenses as he revisits his neck. “You’re just stressed. Have you changed? Or is it just a season of life?”

“Seasons change.”

One fades off into another, and when it finally comes back around some things are never quite the same.

Jean grabs hold of him, then. Flips their bodies without warning and watches how Liam flushes at the sight of Jean hovering above him.

“No more talking tonight.” Soft eyes and insistent fingers are as incongruous as Jean’s words. “ _Okay_?”

Liam’s arches skyward, hands grappling for purchase at Jean’s thighs.

“Okay..” He’s barely time to respond. “ _Jean!_ ”

Sealing their lips together, Jean robs them of the opportunity to share words. They engage one another from the same bed, though they exist on separate planes.

Jean kisses hard but is careful when he thrusts into Liam’s heat. Takes his time, listens to the steady rise of blood and nerves, desperate to find their common ground before it’s time to go. He can’t close his eyes—please, not now—because if the sex is increasingly emotionless, _fuck_ it still feels good.

Climbing higher, Jean drags Liam willingly along with him. Meets the wet gaze of perfectly sincere eyes, because if Jean closes his, if he so much as looks away he risks clear blue irises melting to soulful brown.

He can’t do that to Liam.

And it’s a truth he’s not prepared to reconcile himself to, yet.

Liam comes first, hot and messy across his and Jean’s stomachs, biting into Jean’s kiss hard enough to draw blood. It’s everything Jean could have wanted, but oh, not like this. Not from his Liam, who in six months has not once kissed like that.

Stumbling into an orgasm he wasn’t ready for, Jean sobs with elation before melting into the arms braced against his back.

It takes some time to reconcile themselves with reality. To remember their limbs, find their breath again before rolling off opposite sides of the bed.

Before he knows what’s happening, Jean finds himself inquiring as to where Liam is going. For a moment, the only sound is that of pink-stained tissues hitting the trash can, but then Liam hits him with a pensive little smile.

“I think I’m gonna go back to my place tonight.” Thoughtful words to accompany the slow, affectionate rub of his thumb across Jean’s mouth. “You’re leaving early in the morning, right?”

“You can stay if you want.” Jean whispers almost silently. “I didn’t say I wanted you to go.”

“I know.” Again, Liam plays at the purple blossom he’d left at Jean’s lip. Sighs. “I know you don’t want me to go, Jean. But maybe I have to.”

The grip he keeps on Jean's elbow borders just on the other side of too tight, though he isn’t asked to let go.

“It’s fine.” Liam promises, moving to clasp Jean’s shoulder instead. “Go home. Come back. Maybe things will feel different then.”

The laughter that falls from Jean’s lips comes out almost sad and sardonically.

And so it goes, that after a nearly sleepless night, Jean climbs into his car at four in the morning.

At some point he finds himself driving across old, familiar roads. Doesn’t think twice when skipping the exit that would take him to his parent’s house, opting instead to drive on just a little more.

It’s just after eight a.m. when the apartment door creaks open, predictably left unlocked just for him. Jean spills inside of the tiny living room, simultaneously renewed but exhausted when he crashes onto an old couch, and quite honestly proud of himself for not landing on the floor.

Throwing an old blanket on top of himself, he settles in for however long a nap he can get before Reiner inevitably jostles him back awake.

How merciful that his brothers seem to be choosing to sleep in. How fortunate that Jean’s mind seems to agree with his body, and has no interest in staying awake.

He’s so tired, in fact, that when a hand gently tucks the old blanket around Jean’s tired shoulders, he sleeps on.

None the wiser. Entirely unaware.


End file.
